‘Freiham Nord’ is a large, consistent plot of land located within the ring road surrounding the city of München. It is the last site that will be developed as residential area. In the coming 30 years, a new compact and green city district will be created on this land plot of 190 ha, providing housing for 20.000 people and all the necessary social and cultural infrastructure. A competition has been organized to elaborate a masterplan for the first development phase of this new residential area. BUUR has been selected to participate in this competition and won the fourth price.
The masterplan proposed by BUUR integrates both the landscape qualities of the area and the connections to the existing adjacent neighbourhoods. It conceives the city district as an island surrounded by greenery that links the different contexts between them. The linear building structure of the housing blocks in the east will be continued in the new residential area. As such, the city will have a new outskirt where landscape and construction will merge. A new residential area will be created integrating the logic and the qualities of its surroundings. The neighbourhood will find its structure and identity in a certain number of connecting and readable systems of public spaces that will be overlapping and complementary: a main structure with central tram line interconnecting three squares where central functions will be concentrated; a green belt with a succession of several landscape rooms as a moderating element between the new residential area and the existing housing blocks in the east; and a green road that cuts right through the new housing fabric and links the local social functions and the internal blocks of greenery.
The masterplan presents a sustainable neighbourhood that favours ecologic, economic and social quality through a combination of traditional urban principles and future oriented visions. It will be a neighbourhood where urban living, benefiting from a maximum offer of equipment and infrastructure, will be combined with unique living qualities at the outskirts of the city, where an open and natural landscape meets and embraces the urban life.
